Abba Ahimeir, the founder of Revisionist Maximalism

Revisionist Maximalism was a short-lived right-wing militant political ideology and Jewish militant ideology which was part of the Brit HaBirionim faction of the Zionist Revisionist Movement (ZRM) created by Abba Ahimeir.[1][2]

History

The ideology and political faction of Revisionist Maximalism was officially created in 1930 by Abba Ahimeir, a Jewish historian, journalist, and politician. Abba Ahimier was born in Russia in 1897 and migrated to Palestine at the age of fifteen. After the end of World War I, Ahimier enrolled the University of Kiev in the Russian Empire, then traveled to Liege and Vienna to complete his academic studies. He then returned to Palestine and became close in contact with other socialist circles, and organizations. In 1928 Ahimier joined Ze'ev Jabotinsky's Revisionist movement and became one of the movement's important activists.[3]

He called for the Zionist Revisionist Movement (ZRM) to adopt the principles of totalitarianism to create a "pure nationalism" amongst Jews.[4] Ahimeir was originally a member of the Jewish Labour Movement who supported the October Revolution in Russia in 1917, and called for Jews to have their "own 1917" and spoke of the need for an October Revolution in Zionism. However Ahimeir grew disillusioned with Russian Bolshevism which he began to see as a Russian nationalist movement rather than a movement to promote international class struggle. Having become disillusioned with communism, Ahimeir grew nationalistic after the Arab-Jewish violence occurred in the British Mandate of Palestine from 1928 to 1929.[5] Revisionist Maximalism rejects communism, humanism, internationalism, liberalism, pacifism and socialism; condemned liberal Zionists for only working for middle-class Jews rather than the Jewish nation as a whole.[1][5] Soon, Abba Ahimier, the poet Uri Zvi Greenberg, and Wolfgang von Weisl, the chairman of their Palestine central committee, became the ideological leaders of the Revisionists, after Jabotinsky was banned from returning to Palestine by the British authorities, due to his political activities.[3]

During the 1930s, Abba Ahimier Joshua Yevin, and Uri Zvi Grunberg began to establish their own newspaper, Hazit HaAm, and would publish the idea of "Jewish Labor" and emphasized that Jews should be self-reliant and economically independent.[3] In December 1932 Ahimier, along with Weisl, Gruenberg, and his supporters organized a strike-breaking "union" at the Froumine Biscuit Factory in Jerusalem by providing scabs. Then on February 27, 1933, the Maximalist tried to break a building strike in Petah Tikva, where dozens of strikers were arrested for battling the scabs.[6]

In 1930, Brit HaBirionim under Ahimeir's leadership publicly declared their desire to form a fascist state at the conference of the ZRM, saying:

Ideology

Revisionist Maximalists strongly supported the Italian fascist regime of Benito Mussolini and wanted the creation of a Jewish state based on fascist principles.[4] The Revisionist Maximalists support collapsed in 1933 after Ahimeir's support for the assassination of Haim Arlosoroff.[citation needed]

The Maximalist goal was to "extract Revisionism from its liberal entrapment", as they wanted Jabotinsky's status to be elevated to a dictator,[13] and desired to force integrate the population of Palestine into Hebrew society.[14] The Maximalists believed that authoritarianism and national solidarity was necessary to have the public collaborate with the government, and to create total unity in Palestine.[15]

The label of "fascist" has nevertheless to be regarded with reserves because in that period as later it was used often abusively in the disputes between opposed political non-fascist factions, as in the 1930s even the Social Democrat parties were accused by Stalin and the communists of being "fascists" or "social-fascists". In the same way in Palestine Revisionist Zionists themselves were often qualified in the 1930s as "fascists" by the Labor Zionist leaders and the Revisionists attacked the social democratic dominated General Confederation of Labor (Histadrut) and Ben Gurion by use of terms like "Red Swastika" and comparisons with fascism and Hitler.[16][17]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Kaplan, The Jewish Radical Right. University of Wisconsin Press, 2005. p15
  2. ↑ Shindler 2006, p. 13.
  3. 1 2 3 Tamir 2014, p. 1062-1063.
  4. 1 2 Heller 2001, pp. 364–365.
  5. 1 2 3 Shindler 2006, p. 156.
  6. ↑ Brenner, Lenni (1983). "Zionist-Revisionism: The Years of Fascism and Terror". Journal of Palestine Studies. 13 (1): 72. doi:10.2307/2536926. ISSN 0377-919X. JSTOR 2536926.
  7. 1 2 3 Heller 2001, p. 377.
  8. ↑ Heller 2001, p. 375.
  9. ↑ Yaacov Shavit. Jabotinsky and the revisionist movement, 1925-1948. Oxon, England, UK: Frank Cass & Co, Ltd., 1988. Pp. 202.
  10. ↑ Heller 2001, p. 379.
  11. ↑ Heller 2001, p. 381.
  12. ↑ Heller 2001, p. 380.
  13. ↑ Naor, Arye (2006). "Review of The Triumph of Military Zionism: Nationalism and the Origins of the Israeli Right". Israel Studies. 11 (3): 176. doi:10.1353/is.2006.0029. ISSN 1084-9513. JSTOR 30245655.
  14. ↑ Tamir 2014, p. 1080.
  15. ↑ Tamir 2014, p. 1082.
  16. ↑ Douglas Feith Book Review:Jabotinsky by Hillel Halkin Wall Street Journal 30 may 2014
  17. ↑ Yaacov Shavit Jabotinsky and the Revisionist Movement 1925-1948 p.336 and the XIIth ch Revisionism and Fascism - Image and Interpretation p.349 and al.in Oxon, England, UK: Frank Cass & Co, Ltd.,1988

Works cited

  • Heller, Joseph (2001). "The Failure of Fascism in Jewish Palestine 1925–1948". In Larsen, Stein Ugelvik (ed.). Fascism Outside of Europe. Columbia University Press. pp. 362–392. ISBN 9780880339889.
  • Shavit, Yaacov (1988). Jabotinsky and the Revisionist Movement, 1925–1948. Frank Cass & Co. Ltd. ISBN 0714633429.
  • Shindler, Colin (2006). The Triumph of Military Zionism: Nationalism and the Origins of the Israeli Right. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1845110307.
  • Tamir, Dan (2014). "From a Fascist's Notebook to the Principles of Rebirth: The Desire for Social Integration in Hebrew Fascism, 1928–1942". The Historical Journal. 57 (4): 1062–1082. doi:10.1017/S0018246X14000053.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revisionist_Maximalism